Originally published as Chapter 13, in the book titled The Real Business of Photography , Allworth Press, NY ISBN 158115-350-3

Reasons for Nonpayment
After you have done everything right to get clients and jobs you still have one more very, if not the most, important task. You have to get paid. Experience has taught me that photographers do not get paid for a few reasons. These are:

• The purchaser intended to bilk the photographer
• The purchaser is bankrupt
• The purchaser is having cash-flow problems
• The job was unsatisfactory
• The invoice was lost by the purchaser
• The photographer did not comply with the clients purchasing process
• The photographer never sent an invoice
  
  

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Bilking the Photographer
An unfortunate fact of business is that there are con artists who are hard at work trying to find ways to steal from you. While it is rare, some photographers have had their work stolen, when they expected payment for it. This most often happens with stock photography. A person solicits stock images for a project. The photographer sends his or her valuable images with the intent of making a sale. The person is never heard from again. The photographer thinks the person is just taking a long time deciding. When phone calls are not returned the photographer sends an invoice for holding fees. It doesn’t get paid. A few months later the photographer sees his or images in print. Pressing the issue to get paid, the photographer learns that the phone is disconnected and the person who requested the images is nowhere to be found. When the image user is contacted the photographer finds out that he or she thought the person who was in fact paid for the images was the photographer’s agent.

Welcome to the world of white-collar crime. Someone just used the photographer’s images, maybe several photographers’ images, to sell to a user who legitimately paid for them in good faith. The photographer is not going to be able to get paid for the use of the images because the user paid already and is also a victim of the same crime that victimized the photographer. The police are sympathetic, but they have a backlog of much more serious crimes to work on. This new crime is on the list. Maybe they will get to investigate it in a few months or even years. The photographer isn’t going to get paid in any event.

I was always amazed when photographers were defrauded in such a fashion. I could never understand how any photographer would send off images to any party that they knew nothing about. There is only one way to avoid being such a victim, and that is to take precautions. Here are a few:

• Ask for references.
• Search for the name on the Internet to see if you can establish its legitimacy.
• Go on photographers’ Internet list servers and ask if anyone has heard of them.
• Send low-resolution digital files or small prints for review.
• Recognize that sending a original is like sending money. Treat everything accordingly. You don’t send money to strangers, do you?
  
  

In the end, if someone does defraud you, you just have to accept the fact that it was your turn to be one of life’s victims. You can deter thieves, but you can’t stop them.

Go to Part 2